Pentecost 20B
October 7, 2018
Luke 11:1-4
INTRODUCTION
Today we
take a break from our regularly scheduled jaunt through Mark’s Gospel to hear a
few readings that serve to introduce our stewardship campaign, the theme of
which is Daily Bread.
The first is
from Genesis, the part of the creation story in which God tells the man and
woman he has just created that they will be in charge of taking care of all the
plants and trees and animals that God made. Though the text doesn’t use the
exact word, what God is telling the man and the woman is not, “Use (and abuse)
this stuff however you see fit,” but rather, “You are to be stewards of this
creation. Care for it. Till it. Help it to grow and thrive.” All, of course,
with the understanding that ultimately, it belongs to God!
For our Gospel reading, it seemed
appropriate that today we would hear one of the two texts, one in Luke and one
in Matthew, that introduce us to the Lord’s Prayer, that prayer in which we
regularly ask God to “give us this day our daily bread.” The Matthew version is
a bit closer to what we are familiar with praying, but I chose Luke for reasons
I’ll get into in the sermon. As you listen to these familiar texts, and
especially to the words of the Lord’s Prayer, think about them in terms of how
God is calling us to notice what we have already been given, and giving thanks
for how God always provides for us.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our
Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
How many of
you would say that prayer is a fundamental part of your life of faith? How many
would say it is the most fundamental
part of your life of faith? Okay, now be honest: how many of you have ever
struggled in any way with your prayer life, either not knowing what to pray
for, or what words to use, or you couldn’t get into a good pattern, or because
you were mad at God and couldn’t bring yourself to talk to him, or any other
reason?
I have dealt
with all of that! I have multiple times come to my spiritual director and said,
“My prayer life isn’t working right now. Can you help me get it to where I want
it?” And that is why I’m so grateful for this passage in Luke, in which the
disciples witness Jesus off praying by himself, and they bravely and vulnerably
come to him asking, “Lord, teach us to pray.” These are my favorite words with
which to start a prayer journal, because these words are a constant prayer for
me. Teach me to pray, Lord. Help me do this better. I know how important this
is, God, so please, teach me to pray!
Jesus’
response is so powerful, that the words he suggests have been used by
Christians for the past 2000 years. The Lord’s Prayer is memorized by toddlers,
written on our hearts, runs through our veins and resides in our very bones. I
remember once when I was struggling to know how to pray, and when I told my
husband this, his wise response was, “Pray the Lord’s Prayer. It’s a really
good prayer.” What a wonderful sermon! That’ll preach!
But even with
such a “really good prayer” as this, the danger of a prayer that we all have
had memorized since childhood is that it might start at times to lose its
power, as we recite it by rote, and let our minds wander, and don’t really pay
attention to the words. So I always welcome ways to engage with the Lord’s
Prayer in a different way, to help me think about these words differently, to
let them water my weary soul in new ways. And this week, we have just such an
opportunity, as we consider this well-worn prayer in the context of
stewardship.
When a
member of our stewardship committee at St. Martin suggested Daily Bread as a
stewardship theme, we were in the midst of the Bread of Life discourse in
John’s Gospel – six weeks in a row of Jesus talking about himself as the Bread
of Life. While it’s not my favorite preaching series, it is an image of Jesus I
can, shall we say, sink my teeth into. Jesus is indeed that which gives us
life, which sustains us, which fills up our bellies and our hearts. The
question becomes: what do we do about that? Do we accept that reality, say,
“Thanks a bunch, Jesus!” and go about our merry way? Well, sometimes. But
during the next few weeks, I want us all to take the time to really think about
what comes next, after we receive our daily bread. And today, I’d like to use
the Lord’s Prayer to do that.
Let’s start by looking at Luther’s explanation
of what daily bread is. If you remember studying catechism as a kid, or you
read your emailed devotions this week, help me out here: what does Luther say
is included in “daily bread”? [wait for answers] He says, “Daily bread includes
everything needed for this life, such as food, drink, clothing, shoes, house,
home, fields, cattle, money, goods, God-fearing spouse and children, faithful
servants and rulers, good government, good weather, peace, health, order, honor,
true friends, good neighbors, and the like.” In other words: Everything!
Everything we need to sustain and nourish us in this life, both physically and
spiritually.
When we pray, “Give us this day our
daily bread,” it does two things. It first acknowledges that God can and does provide everything we need to live, to thrive, to be nourished
and sustained – including not only the food we eat and our other physical
needs, but also the relationships we have that feed our souls, really all those
things we hear about in our reading today from Genesis.
Second, praying this prayer helps us
to recognize that daily bread when God does provide it, and then to respond in
kind. There are several ways we might respond. The first and most important is
gratitude. This week, in one of the devotions that was sent out, I suggested
keeping a gratitude journal. Did anyone do that, or have you in the past? I did
this while I was living in Slovakia as a missionary, and during a really tough
and lonely year, it was my lifeline. Every day, I forced myself to recognize
God’s providence in my life, to see all the ways that I was being fed and
nourished, and on days when I couldn’t do it, I went back and read how God had
provided in the past. It kept my eyes up and open that year, kept me looking
around for daily bread. Intentional gratitude is an immensely powerful tool,
not only for giving life, but for helping us to recognize life when it is right
in front of us!
From that gratitude comes another way
we respond to God’s gift of daily bread: giving. Someone told me about
something Rotary Club does called Happy Dollars. When something good happens in
your life – your kid gets a job, you do well on a project, your best friend
gets married – you respond by making a financial gift to a worthy cause, or to
God through your church. “It’s a feel-good practice,” this person told me. And
it is! It’s a natural response, really – just like when we are grateful, we may
spontaneously smile, sharing our joy with the world, a financial gift, however
much, is a way of sharing with the world our joy and gratitude, that God
provides for us our daily bread.
Of course, it also works the other
way around. Sometimes we give when we are happy and grateful. Sometimes giving
can be something we do to remind
ourselves to be grateful, and to help us recognize that daily bread in our
lives. This is a reason for regular giving, because when you sit down on a
regular basis and write a check (or whatever you do), it is a regular reminder
to stop and take note of the ways God has already blessed you with daily bread.
This is all the more important to do when we are feeling ungrateful or grumpy! Like
writing in a gratitude journal, this is a practice that forces us to recognize
our bounty, and to be trusting enough to release it back to the giver. For me,
each check I write as an offering is an opportunity to be concretely grateful
for the gifts I have been given, even if I am feeling grumpy at the time!
Another response to God’s gift of
daily bread that I want to mention pertains especially to the daily bread that
feeds our emotional and spiritual hunger, that is, our relationships. I think
it is very telling that the very next petition in Jesus’ famous prayer is,
“Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those indebted to us.” Forgiveness is hard
work, both on the giving and receiving end, but not forgiving or not
accepting forgiveness is a surefire way of keeping us from fully receiving the
daily bread that God offers us. It is so damaging, even toxic to relationships.
It holds us back from the joy God wants for us. In that way, not to forgive is
to be a poor steward of God’s gift of relationship with one another. I know, I
know, it is so much easier for me to stand here and say that than it is to do
the hard work of forgiveness. Yet once we are able to get to that point – to
forgive someone, or to accept forgiveness from another person, from ourselves,
or from God – it is as if our hearts are cracked open, and ready to receive
more robustly the life, love, and grace of God, and then, in turn, to share
those things with the world. To give them back. To live them day to day. In
other words, to share our daily bread!
Of course, perhaps the best daily
bread of all that we receive from God is the bread of God’s grace, which we
have the chance to receive physically as actual bread when we come forward for
communion. Today, the first Sunday in October, is the day designated as World
Communion Sunday, a day when we recognize our relationships with Christians around
the world. As we come forward to receive the bread that is Jesus’ body, we will
remember that Christians the world over do the same thing. We can also
recognize that Christians around the world pray this same Lord’s Prayer, have
the same needs we do, and come to God as broken individuals in need of the same
grace. How remarkable to recognize that God’s daily bread is certainly given for us, but also given for all the
children of God around the world. That, indeed, is something to be grateful
for! As we come forward in a moment for communion, I hope you will join me in
praying for ourselves, and for Christians the world over, that we would all
recognize God’s gift of daily bread, daily grace, daily life, today and every
day.
Let us pray… Give us each day our daily bread, O Lord. Thank you for this gift.
Thank you for your grace. Help us to recognize that you provide all we need
from day to day, and strengthen us to respond in kind. In the name of the
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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